The Wrong Hostage

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Down around El Alamo,” Faroe said.

  Black eyebrows raised in surprise. “You are clairvoyant?”

  “No, but I know that the Magonistas who didn’t get their asses shot off in 1911 ended up in the ejidos and the mines around El Alamo. There’s even a little community called Ojos Azules.”

  Blue eyes.

  “You’ve been there?” Magón asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Most Mexicans know very little about the Magonistas. It’s one of the sad things about my country. Our history is only found in the shadows. You’re an odd gringo that you see those shadows.”

  “I never knew my father very well,” Faroe said. “I was born late in his life. The only trips we ever took were to the mountains east of here, between Ojos Azules and El Alamo. My father was either crazy or a shaman, or both at once. The poor people accepted, even celebrated, his differences. He was a marijuana smuggler back before marijuana became an international commodity. He loved to smoke weed and he loved that wild country and its stoic people. After he died, I came down to Ensenada to go surfing. The ocean was the color of his eyes.”

  Magón studied Faroe’s face. There was nothing to see but intent green eyes, wariness, surprising intelligence, and the relaxation of someone who was used to being alert without being anxious.

  “Yet here you are,” the priest said. “Between the surfer and the man you are now lies much history, yes? You have a hard look about you, the look of a policeman rather than a smuggler.”

  “I was a cop once,” Faroe said, “just like that guy outside with the gun, just like the Chicharrones Brigade keeping Lane in his four-bedroom prison. You don’t have to be honest to carry a badge. Or a crucifix.”

  “So cynical,” Magón said wryly.

  “It’s a dirty job, but if someone doesn’t do it, everyone will have to. There are still some innocents in this corrupt world. Lane is one of them.”

  “And his mother?”

  “What about her?”

  “I was wondering if there might be some personal relationship between you and the beautiful judge.”

  It was Faroe’s turn to be surprised. News of the hot act in the marina parking lot had made it to Mexico sooner than he’d expected. “Since when do the federales report to you?”

  Magón looked puzzled. Then he dragged on the cigar, making its tip glow beneath a pale layer of ash. “I didn’t need a federale to tell me there is something between you and the woman. I saw the three of you walking down there on the sand. A close relationship would explain why you’re trampling where angels fear to tiptoe.”

  “You have your motives,” Faroe said. “I have mine. The only real question is if we can find common ground.”

  Magón sighed. “I don’t want Lane harmed. That’s true of all my charges. But Lane is…different. Intelligent enough to fear, brave enough not to show it, a natural athlete, a superb student once he realized it mattered, and with surprising insight into adults for a boy his age.”

  Something in Faroe began to relax. The risk he’d taken was very close to paying off. “Can I count on you to keep Lane safe while I try to untangle this mess?”

  “This ‘mess,’ as you call it, is quite complicated. It’s not likely to yield to the efforts of a single man, no matter how skillful or dangerous he is. The outcome is in God’s hands.”

  “My objectives are more limited than yours,” Faroe said. “If necessary, I can work alone. Your pope wouldn’t like the results.”

  “This situation has very high stakes. No one controls all the players. No one can guarantee the outcome.”

  “Not even God?”

  “He works in ways we mortals don’t always understand.”

  “Save it for the believers. I hold individual mortals responsible for earthly outcomes.”

  Magón straightened. “You’re threatening me.”

  “Amen.”

  The priest’s blue eyes stared through the little window, studying Faroe. Magón puffed quickly on the cigar and his face disappeared in a billow of smoke. When the air cleared, his eyes had changed. They were direct, hard.

  “If I am as corrupt as you suspect I might be,” Magón said, “why wouldn’t I run straight to the men who hold Lane?”

  “Because you learned this secret in the confessional, Father.”

  “Only believers are protected by the sanctity of the confessional.”

  “A lawyer, as well as a diplomat and a spy,” Faroe said dryly. “I should have expected no less from the Vatican. Yes, I’m taking a calculated risk with you. I trust our mutual friend in Rome. He may or may not know what you’re up to but he knows you’re more complex than you appear to be.”

  “A cynic, yet still a man of some faith,” Magón said.

  “I’ve learned to trust a few people. Damned few.”

  “I, too, have faith in a few people. For the moment I’ll keep the confidences of a man who walks into danger by choice.”

  Faroe almost smiled. Under other circumstances, he would have enjoyed Father Rafael Magón, radical pragmatist and Vatican spy.

  “Where can I find Hector Rivas?” Faroe asked.

  “Why?”

  “He holds Lane’s life in his murdering hands,” Faroe said.

  Savoring his cigar, Magón considered the request for a full minute. A feudal lord and traficante like Hector Rivas Osuna had many enemies. A man like Faroe could find many ways to ambush even the highly protected Hector.

  “I have nothing to gain by killing Hector,” Faroe said, understanding the reason for Magón’s hesitation. “With Hector dead, Lane would be in more danger, not less. I’m here to negotiate before anyone gets real nervous. Nerves and guns scare the hell out of me.”

  Magón looked at the tip of the glowing cigar and sighed a smoke-laden breath. “Normally, I wouldn’t be able to answer your question. Hector is always on the move, never sleeping in the same place twice in a row. Sometimes he moves several times in the same night.”

  “Yeah, well, the man has a lot to worry about,” Faroe said sardonically. “History is one long list of people who lay awake wondering who to trust. Some of them guessed right. Others died young.”

  The priest smiled, then sighed again. “One of Hector’s nephews is getting married. I will perform the ceremony this weekend at the Rivas rancho east of Jacumba.”

  “My condolences to the bride,” Faroe said under his breath.

  “Tonight there’s a celebration in Ensenada,” Magón said. “Hector is the patriarch of an extended clan. He will attend the party, even if only for an hour or so.”

  “Ensenada is too big to search in an hour or so. Can you narrow it down?”

  “Try the Canción. It’s a restaurant on the grounds of the Encantamar, just off the ocean walk, the malecón, in Ensenada. Hector likes the abalone there.”

  “Thank you, Father.”

  “Understand that Hector Rivas Osuna is a ticking bomb.”

  “Anything in particular that will set him off?”

  “Everything, at any moment. He has become addicted to rock and nicotine.”

  The confessional window slid closed.

  Shit. A crackhead toking doctored Mexican cigarettes. He could blow up at any instant.

  The chapel was so quiet Faroe could hear the gentle trickle of water in the fountain beneath the pepper tree.

  The complex Father Rafael Magón had vanished.

  ALL SAINTS SCHOOL

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON

  24

  THE SUN WAS HIDDEN behind a seething silver mass of clouds. Waves humped up man high, higher, then exploded on the beach in a boil of sand and froth. The wind whipped wave tops into a salty mist. Onshore, the wind stripped fine sand from the beach and scored unprotected skin.

  Faroe spotted Grace and Lane sitting together, watching the wild waves. The boy’s shoulders were hunched in fatigue, his mother’s in tension. Neither seemed to notice the seagulls wheeling and keening above them, begging for scraps.

>   The armed guards lounged twenty yards up the beach, smoking and waiting, watching, always watching.

  Grace sensed Faroe’s approach and turned to look at him. Her face was smooth, expressionless. She was working hard to keep her fears under control.

  Good for you, woman, Faroe thought, even if Lane reads you like a billboard. Both of you get points for trying to help each other.

  “Time to go,” Faroe said to Grace.

  She started to object, then swallowed it.

  Lane stood up, disappointed but not surprised.

  They walked back across the beach together. Sand peppered cloth and skin. Pretending to turn from a gust of stinging wind, Faroe checked the guards’ position.

  They couldn’t overhear.

  “Listen to me,” Faroe said in a low voice to Lane. “You can trust Father Rafael, but only up to a point. Don’t tell him about the phone or the computer. But if you believe it’s all going from sugar to shit, make sure he knows.”

  Lane nodded.

  “Lay off the orange juice,” Faroe said. “Pour it down the drain when nobody’s looking, act zoned if you want to, but keep a clear head. It’s your best weapon. You can help us, but only if you’re in control of yourself.”

  Lane nodded again and gave Faroe an uncertain smile. “Thanks.”

  “We’re going to get you out of this,” Grace said tightly. “I promise.”

  “I’m okay,” the boy said. “I just wish…” His voice died.

  “Go ahead,” she said.

  “I just wish I knew what Dad’s doing in all this.”

  Sweet bugger all, thought Faroe.

  “So do I,” Grace said.

  When they reached the cottage, mother and son went in. Faroe stayed outside, letting them have their private good-bye. Several minutes later Grace walked out looking furious and frightened.

  “He’s fine,” she hissed under her breath. “He got it hidden.” Beneath her fear, there was a bitter kind of anger in her voice.

  Faroe didn’t say anything until they were back in the Mercedes and leaving the campus. Then he dragged the satellite cell phone out of his bag and punched up a number out of its memory.

  When the call was answered, he spoke quickly. “Get me technical support.” He only had to wait a few seconds. “This is Faroe. Search the tech inventory. I had an experimental Motorola checked out about a year ago. I didn’t bother to return it when I bailed last week. Do me a favor. Activate the GPS pinger on it and get me a lat-lon reading.”

  “Hold, please.”

  “Holding,” Faroe said.

  Grace looked over. “What are you doing?”

  Faroe waved off her question. A few seconds later, St. Kilda tech support came back on the line. Faroe listened and memorized.

  “One seventeen by thirty-two ten,” Faroe said. “Good, it’s working fine. Now set an alarm perimeter on it. If the damn thing moves more than two nautical miles, let me know ASAP.”

  “Twenty-four/seven monitoring?”

  “Yes. I know it costs a lot. Call Steele if you have to, but mount that watch now. After the monitor is in place, tell research to find out who owns the Encantamar hotel and Canción restaurant in Ensenada. Got that?”

  “Yes.”

  Faroe punched the call off and turned to Grace. “You were saying?”

  “What are you doing?” she repeated.

  “Just what it sounded like—setting up a passive surveillance on your son. As long as he can keep the phone within arm’s reach, we’ll know where he is.”

  “That’s too dangerous. What if they find out?”

  Faroe turned onto the toll road and headed south, toward Ensenada. “What are they going to do, spank him? Come on, Your Honor, get serious.”

  “I am,” she shot back. “You might as well have given him a loaded gun.”

  “Hell of an idea. Did you have one handy?” Faroe gave her a hard sideways look. “I didn’t think so.”

  “You’re crazy! If they find that phone, they’ll know that I—”

  “Look,” Faroe cut across her words, telling himself to be patient, she was under a hellish strain. “All they’ll know is that someone gave him a way to communicate with Mom. What’s important is that Lane feels like he’s connected, not cut off, not so much a prisoner.”

  “But—”

  “Despair is the prisoner’s worst enemy,” Faroe said flatly. “Right now, Lane feels like he has a way of controlling his own fate. We need him level, not panicked or shut down.”

  “You didn’t see how scared he was underneath the drugs and the don’t-worry-Mom talk.”

  “Your son is a tough, savvy kid. Let him use that. It could make the difference between getting free and getting dead.”

  “He’s barely fifteen!”

  “A lot of kids don’t make it that long. Life’s only money-back guarantee is that you die.”

  Grace simply stared at Faroe and bit back all the words she wanted to scream.

  You don’t understand! Would you be so damned calm if you knew Lane was your son?

  Or is it different for men? Don’t they get the importance of children? Sex, yes, that’s important to men.

  But not babies.

  Even their own.

  Yet part of Grace was afraid that Faroe would be different. He would care, and in caring, hate her for what he’d never known.

  Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. So don’t.

  Don’t think about it.

  Any of it.

  You can’t change the past. You can’t foresee the future. You can only live now, this moment.

  And don’t scream.

  Whatever you do, don’t scream.

  But she wanted to scream so much she felt like she was being strangled.

  Grace turned away and stared out the window so that Faroe wouldn’t somehow sense the bleak warfare pulsing beneath her silence.

  ENSENADA

  SUNDAY, 4:00 P.M.

  25

  THE DRIVE TO ENSENADA wasn’t long, but by the time Faroe reached the city, he’d had a gutful of the silent tension in the car, an invisible storm waiting to unload.

  Grace had barely breathed.

  “The first time I saw Ensenada,” Faroe said, “it was a lazy resort with a few hotels for gringos and a business district forty years out of date. Now it’s a full-speed-ahead port city with seventy-five thousand people, a good seawall, cruise ship docks, and a working waterfront.”

  Grace didn’t even look at him.

  So much for a neutral topic, Faroe thought.

  In silence he found the hotel overlooking the harbor, parked, and went inside. After a little haggling he rented an ocean-view suite on the fourth floor. He went back to the SUV, pulled Grace out, and herded her up to their room.

  In silence.

  Faroe shot the bolt behind them and went immediately to the balcony to check out the sight lines. The restaurant Magón said would host a Rivas prewedding celebration was crammed into a corner on the ocean side of the hotel property, surrounded by a head-high wall and a small, well-tended desert landscape. A sign was posted on the wrought-iron front gate, but it was too far away to read from the balcony.

  He dug a small pair of binoculars out of his bag and went back for a better look at the sign.

  CERRADO

  A translation was included for the language-impaired gringos whose dollars fueled Ensenada.

  CLOSED FOR PRIVATE PARTY

  So far, Magón’s information looked good. The Canción was indeed reserved for Hector’s clan.

  When Faroe turned back to the room, Grace was standing in the center of the suite clutching her shoulder bag. She had the shattered-around-the-eyes look found in psych wards and battlefields. The flat line of her mouth told him that she wasn’t going to feel chatty anytime soon.

  Faroe went to the telephone, ordered food and a bucket of beers from room service, and came back.

  She hadn’t moved.

  “You want me to throw you
in the shower,” he asked, “or would a cold washcloth get the job done?”

  Without a word Grace went to the bathroom and shut the door behind her. She looked at the toilet and wondered if she could get rid of the cold fear in her gut by sticking her finger down her throat.

  You can’t throw up the past.

  Falling apart won’t do Lane any good.

  Breathe, damn it.

  Just breathe.

  She drew a ragged breath, then another, and walked two steps to the sink. The mirror reflected an exhausted woman with a tear-streaked face and wild hair. She dropped her purse on the tile counter and turned on the faucet. Water ran coldly in the sink, sounding loud in the silence. She dipped her hands in the flow, cupped up a double handful, and slapped it against her face. The water smelled faintly of chlorine. It took a few hard, cold splashes, but finally she breathed almost normally without having to remind herself.

  The soap was wrapped in paper. It smelled too sweet, like Grandma Marta’s pink bath bar, a scent that brought memories gushing back, everything Grace had vowed to leave behind.

  Tears much hotter than water ran down her face.

  Never look back.

  For the first time she wondered if Marta had managed that inhuman feat.

  With quick, automatic gestures, Grace fixed her makeup and finger-combed her hair. Despite eyes bloodshot from crying, the new woman in the mirror looked more together. She dug out a bottle of eyedrops. They burned worse than tears, but the next time she looked in the mirror her eyes were clear. She smoothed her clothes as best she could, opened the bathroom door, and went out to face whatever came next.

  Sultry, thick air billowed through the open drapes. Boats at anchor moved restlessly, reflecting the power of the distant storm even in sheltered waters. She felt her mood lift. Part of her was looking forward to the violent storm to come. She’d always loved storms. They had a freedom she’d allowed herself only once.